India head coach Gautam Gambhir has given a sharp reply to all the critiques on selection of Harshit Rana. He openly slammed Kris Srikkanth who alleged that Rana is Gambhir’s “Yes man.”
“Look, it’s a little shameful. And I will be very honest with you. It is so unfair that you are targeting a 23-year-old kid for the sake of your YouTube channel. Because ultimately, his father is not an ex-chairman or an ex-cricketer or an NRI. Whatever cricket he has played so far, he has played on his own, and he will continue to play on his own. If you target someone individually, that is not fair,” said Gambhir, after India beat West Indies in the second Test to sweep series 2-0.
“You can target people’s performance and there are selectors and coaches who target people’s performance. But if you say such things to a 23-year-old kid, and then social media amplifies it even more, or in social media, you are told in such a way, imagine the mindset. In future, someone can target your kid too. Anyone can target anyone. At least you can realise that he is a 23-year-old kid,” he added.
“He is not a 33-year-old kid. You can criticise me, and I can still handle it. But a 23-year-old boy, is a 23-year-old boy. That is something which is not acceptable. I think that is why we need to be careful. What you say, only to run your YouTube channel. I think you’ve got, every one of us, not only me, you guys, every one of us have a moral responsibility towards Indian cricket. Indian cricket doesn’t belong to me. It doesn’t belong to people sitting in the dressing room. It belongs to all of you as well. It belongs to every Indian, who genuinely wants Indian cricket to do well. So you can criticise, but only on performance. Don’t do it because you want to target an Indian.You want to target someone, you target someone. You target me, that’s okay,” Gambhir explained.
“But, don’t target a young boy. And, it is not only in Harshit’s case, in future also, don’t target these young boys. So, performance, I think performance, we all know that it is important, results are important,” he concluded.
On Day 5 of second Test, it was a smooth chasing target for India as they were only required to chase 58 runs. Both KL Rahul and Sai Sudharsan started strong but Roston Chase showed his tactical brilliance and made use of his spin attack. Chase himself came in and took two crucial wickets of Sai Sudharsan and Shubman Gill.
KL Rahul scored a magnificent half-century and guided India through the finish line. With this win Shubman Gill registers his first series win as the Test captain of India.
